Community Participation In Tourism Management In Busai Village Homestay, Wangnamkheo District, Nakhon Ratchasima Province, Thailand

Abstract

The objective of this research was 1) to study community participation in tourism management at Busai Village Home Stay, Wangnamkheo District, Nakhon Ratchasim Province, and 2) to study the effect of the attitudes upon local tourism, particularly in Busai Village Homestay, Wangnamkheo District, Nakhon Ratchasima Province. This research used both qualitative and quantitative methods, and the population studied was 155 family leaders of households in Busai Village Homestay. In addition, we used content analysis in the qualitative method, and in the quantitative method, we analyzed 155 questionnaires utilizing percentage, arithmetic mean, and standard deviation with the SPSS/PC program. The findings were as follows: Community participation was high with regard to developing ideas for tourism management, in planning locations for tourist attractions and use of natural resources, in budgeting for supporting and developing tourist attractions, and in viewing tourist attractions as financially beneficial for the community. Villagers’ participation in keeping attractions clean and safe, in beautifying the attractions, and in receiving information on tourism were also high. The community’s overall attitude toward tourism was at a medium level. A widely held opinion was that Tambon Administrative Organization (TAO) should accept the people’s ideas in order to develop a tourism management system because TAO has not cooperated with the local people in tourism management as it should have. Apart from this, the local people believe that all people are the owners of natural resources serving as tourist attractions and that all should be responsible for taking care of them.. The local people should not protest tourism management, and neither should they consider it as the responsibility of TAO only.